I think they did, Endwalker even did great, too. I mean at the 83 trial I'm pretty sure everyone went "Wait, already!?" but in a good way. It meant bigger things were happening.
The issue we see now is a new writer. Someone who hasn't learned their lessons. A new writfer following ShB and EW was always going to be a difficult battle and it was sure to get the brunt of some criticism... But the mistakes in this expansion are so obvious and so terribly that, while I see a new writer making these mistakes, this script had to go through editors and undergo revisions. There isn't "A writer" there's teams of writers. Multiple sets of eyes. It makes me wonder, how bad was it before revisions that this looks this bad now?